In the summer of 1978 reports spoke of Pakistan setting up a centrifuge plant for enrichment of uranium as a boost to its atomic energy programme. Sounding surprised at the development, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Homi N. Bhabha declared at the time: "buying shoes does not mean you can make shoes."

Today it is the AEC which has been caught flat-footed with the US cutting off supplies of uranium for the Tarapur atomic power plant. Now the Government will have to take a political decision on what step to take next. Scientists of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) have pointed out three clear options: importing enriched uranium, making enriched uranium ourselves or switching to the mixed oxide fuel (MOX) of plutonium and uranium.

The Government could decide for the time being to take up Russia's standing offer to supply enriched uranium, but this will be a decision fraught with political implications. Such a purchase may also carry a new set of safeguards.

The only advantage of this step would be that it would win more time for Indian scientists to master the technology to run the reactors on any indigenously developed nuclear-fuel. The crucial decision on whether to go in for enriched uranium technology or change to the mixed oxide fuel will still remain to be taken.

Those who support making enriched uranium indigenously also point out another long-term gain. If the uranium enrichment facility is set up it will also provide the initial fuel charge for the experimental Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) coming up at Kalpakkam near Madras. These scientists feel that it is better to get down to work seriously rather than depend on supplies with strings attached.

They say that it is not beyond the country's technical capability to enrich natural uranium. But DAE sources say that of the three known techniques of enrichment - gas centrifuge nozzle and laser - only the first has been tried out even in a very small way in this country.

However, none of these are likely to be taken up as they require heavy capital investment which is not justified by the need to produce fuel for one or two power plants, unless the country is also going to embark on a weapons programme.

It is estimated that a uranium enrichment facility will cost over Rs 200 crore though only 20 tonnes of enriched uranium will be needed annually. At any rate it will be several years before the enriched uranium can be developed as an alternative for Tarapur's present fuel.

Decision Needed: The MOX is the only fuel which can be developed in time. The available American fuel can be stretched upto 1983 by running the Tarapur plant at 50 per cent capacity. But all the talk of MOX as the alternative fuel is futile unless an immediate decision is taken to reprocess the spent fuel stockpiled in Tarapur.

The present Tarapur fuel contains 3 per cent enriched uranium 235 and 97 per cent uranium 238. The uranium 238 is not easily fissionable but turns into fissionable plutonium after being inside the reactor core for some time. But even if the decision is taken now it will be at least two years before the Tarapur station can run on MOX.

To produce MOX, natural uranium is mixed with a small quantity of plutonium, about two percent of which can be recovered from the Tarapur spent fuel rods utilising the power reactor fuel processing plant lying idle at Tarapur. Modifying Tarapur's design will be necessary for this, but this is unlikely to be a problem for the DAE which has had to make over 200 changes to the Tarapur plant on its own.

The idle power reactor at Tarapur is embroiled in controversy as India's right to reprocess the spent fuel is being misinterpreted as an attempt to acquire and stockpile weapons grade plutonium. The plant is intended to process irradiated fuel from the Tarapur and Rajasthan atomic power stations to extract useful radio isotopes besides plutonium.

Other Uses: Scientists say plutonium will not only be useful to fabricate MOX to keep Tarapur going but may also be used to produce fuel for the Kalpakkam FBTR in case the highly enriched uranium is not available from France on acceptable conditions. They argue that despite the potential for military purposes it is unlikely that this plutonium will be used to make bombs.

Meanwhile there are other plans for producing plutonium. The plutonium plant at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, built at the same time as the Cirus research reactor in the '60s is being modified and expanded to treat the spent fuels of Cirus and the thermal research reactor R-5 that is expected to be ready in 1983. There are plans for a plutonium recycling project at Trombay and another fuel reprocessing plant at Kalpakkam.

Last year's report of the international fuel cycle evaluation has established that in the immediate future plutonium technology offers the only hope of providing a comparatively cheap source of energy. Though the Indian atomic power programme has progressed rather slowly, its strategy is clear.

The plan is for natural uranium-fuelled reactors in the first phase, followed by fast breeder reactors in the second phase using plutonium produced from the first phase reactors. It will eventually be followed by reactors based on the self-sustaining thorium gas-uranium cycle in which more fuel is produced than consumed.

While the fast breeder reactors using thorium, of which there are abundant domestic reserves, may prove to be the most efficient electricity producers in the future, the plan till the end of the century will have to be for building heavy water uranium plants.

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